As fast bowler Naveen-ul-Haq trapped Mustafizur Rahman plumb in front, Rashid Khan sank to his knees in relief and joy. Gulbadin Naib offered sajdaa. Their head coach Jonathan Trott and bowling coach Dwayne Bravo embraced near the ropes.
In the stands in Kingstown the locals danced as if victory was theirs. After a four-and-a-half-hour edge-of-seat slug fest, Afghanistan pulled off a thrilling 8-run win (DLS) over Bangladesh to enter their first semifinal of a major ICC tournament.
History was written right to left in Dari and Pashto on cricket’s tapestry in Afghan sweat, tears and pearls of laughter for those watching it unfold. Australians who weren’t at the scene, will stay unseen, evicted from the T20 World by the Afghans. Afghanistan will back themselves to beat South Africa in the semis.
It was during the 2010 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean that Afghanistan made its entry onto the world stage. With tall fast bowlers sporting war paint bringing out theatrical celebrations, and players emerging out of refugee camps in Pakistan. Even as they kept producing magical wrist-spinners after wrist-spinners, their struggles off the field have been the most sought after tale. But 14 years later, it is their skills and fighting spirit that would be the talk of the cricketing world.
“It’s a dream for us to be in the semi-finals. The way we started the tournament, the belief came when we beat New Zealand. It’s unbelievable. We thought 130-135 was a good score but we fell 15 runs short. We knew they would come hard at us and we knew that is what we could take advantage of. We wanted to make people back home happy, that was the discussion we had and everyone did a wonderful job,” Rashid, the captain, said.
Thanks to Australia’s defeat at the hands of India earlier in the day, Afghanistan knew they could cap off a historic night. A win against Bangladesh is all that they needed. But still, the magnitude of what awaited Afghanistan should they cross over the line, clearly seemed to weigh them down especially when they won the toss and batted first.
On these pitches, unless batsmen get closer to the pitch of the ball, the big hits have been hard to pull-off. And the Bangladesh attack kept dragging back the length as Afghanistan’s batsmen kept swinging and missing. Out of the 120 balls they faced, there were 66 dot balls, that’s 11 full overs.
In the first 10 overs alone, openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran consumed 30 dot balls. Time and again they went for the cross-batted shots that weren’t apt for this surface. But the good thing was, they had wickets in hand to step on the gas. However, the loss of Azmatullah Omarzai, Gulbadin and Gurbaz in the space of three overs would peg them back before Rashid Khan’s cameo gave them something to bowl at.
For Bangladesh to make the semifinals, they had to overhaul the target in 12.1 overs. The powerplay fetched them 46 runs for the loss of three wickets. Litton Das dropped anchor at one end but what added to their woes was none of the other batsmen unshackled. Litton finished unbeaten on 54 from 49 balls, Towhid Hridoy’s 14 the next best.
Like his cameo with the bat, the 11th over bowled by Rashid proved to be the game-changer. With 37 needed off 13 deliveries to qualify, Rashid brought himself on. For Bangladesh this was a make-or-break moment and by the end of that over, where Rashid dismissed Mahmudullah and Rishad Hossain off successive deliveries, Afghanistan sniffed a win.
Twists and turns
As the rain picked up and DLS came into play, there were theatrics also with Gulbadin suddenly going down in a heap at first slip, as Trott signalled to slow things down. A short rain-break later, there were more twists in the middle. With Bangladesh seven down, Afghanistan dried up the boundaries as the run-rate, which was over 7 an over came down to 3.40 between the 11-15 overs. Still with Litton in the middle, Bangladesh were getting closer in singles and twos. Afghanistan needed wickets.
With Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Litton playing out the spinners, Rashid brought on Gulbadin, who had bowled them to victory against Australia. And here trotting away as if nothing had happened a few minutes back, off his second delivery of the night, he made Tanzim go for a horizontal-bat shot and the resultant top-edge found Mohammad Nabi at cover to push Bangladesh to 8 wickets down.
With 12 needed off as many deliveries, Naveen returned to bowl the most important over in Afghanistan’s history as the drizzle was picking up pace. After conceding three runs off the first three balls, he bowled a slower one that Taskin Ahmed managed to drag back onto the stumps. Off his next, Naveen was straight as an arrow to pin Mustafizur plumb in front as Afghanistan made it to the last four.
Source link : https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/afghanistan-script-history-beat-bangladesh-to-qualify-for-the-t20-world-cup-semifinals-9413297/lite/
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Publish date : 2024-06-25 01:15:12
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